ON THE UPPER ST. JOHN'S. 133 



populous with barn-yard fowls, the fellow 

 keeps up such a clatter : now loud and terror- 

 stricken, " like a hen whose head is just go- 

 ing to be cut off," as a friend once expressed 

 it ; then soft and full of content, as if the 

 aforesaid hen had laid an egg ten minutes 

 before, and were still felicitating herself 

 upon the achievement. It was vexatious 

 that here, in the very home of Florida galli- 

 nules, I should see and hear less of them 

 than I had more than once done in Massa- 

 chusetts, where they are esteemed a pretty 

 choice rarity, and where, in spite of what 

 I suppose must be called exceptional good 

 luck, my acquaintance with them had been 

 limited to perhaps half a dozen birds. But 

 in affairs of this kind a direct chase is 

 seldom the best rewarded. At one point 

 the boatman pulled up to a thicket of small 

 willows, bidding me be prepared to see birds 

 in enormous numbers ; but we found only a 

 small company of night herons evidently 

 breeding there and a green heron. The 

 latter my boy shot before I knew what he 

 was doing. He took my reproof in good 

 part, protesting that he had had only a 

 glimpse of the bird, and had taken it for a 



